The one-two punch of Winter Storms Q and Rocky sweeping across Kirksville left city crews to haul away more than 150 tons of snow and kept plows on the streets through the early hours Friday morning.

“For a large snow like this, and for us, it was one large snow because the two events were so close together, we hadn’t really finished dealing with the first snow when the second one hit,” said Public Works Director John Buckwalter.

The timing did allow for some respite over the weekend, giving crews enough time to get their trucks and vehicles back to the shop, get repaired, reloaded and back out all over again Tuesday for Rocky after responding to Q last Wednesday.

And the work isn’t quite over for those crews, with drifts and cleanup still remaining from the heavy snow that left anywhere from 12 to 16 inches on top of snow already on the ground.

“We’ll continue to do touch up,” Buckwalter said. “We’ve been hauling snow most of the day, been doing alleys, widening streets and for the late shift [Thursday night] our plan is to clear the rest of snow on Franklin.”

The decision to leave a snow-median on Franklin through Friday morning and large snow piles in downtown intersections that tower over cars and people is the result of a concerted effort started about three years ago to focus on making the downtown passable.

“No matter how much snow, the plan is the same,” Buckwalter said. “It’s about how long it takes to execute, how big the piles get and how soon we can let vehicles back in. We don’t want to keep vehicles out of the downtown area any longer than we have to.”With snow mountains created at downtown intersections, the parking areas and sidewalks should theoretically allow for shoppers and business owners to carry on.

“We’ve gone to piling the snow about three years ago so we can get the streets clear as quickly as possible,” Buckwalter said. “Drivers can drive around a snow pile but if the snow is piled in the middle of the street or a parking area, they can’t get to the shops or the courthouse.”

Main routes in the city were cleared at least 24 hours after the snow stopped falling earlier this week, but the heavy loads and steady snow for more than a day left many of the secondary routes still covered.

Buckwalter also noted the particularly wet nature of Rocky’s snow, making snow pack and frozen snow difficult to clear even on roads already plowed.

“This snow was especially challenging like with the second part of the storm because it was so heavy and so wet and because there was already so much snow,” Buckwalter said. “We had a terrible problem with snow building up and snow pack on the streets and our smaller trucks couldn’t cut it. They couldn’t literally cut down to the pavement so it takes time for them to get everywhere. There were some neighborhoods we did not get plowed down to pavement as quickly as we would have liked to.”

He highlighted routes like College Park that provide only one way in or out for its residents as one of the crucial secondary routes that wasn’t fully cleared until Wednesday morning.

The Missouri Department of Transportation also struggled with heavy snowfall, calling in crews on Monday from southern Missouri and the St. Louis area to help clear northeast Missouri highways but at no time were any highways closed in the district.

“It all went really well, especially with the two storms and the intensity of the snowfall,” said MoDOT’s Amy Crawford, with the Northeast District. “For several hours we were getting several inches an hour.”

MoDOT began mobilizing its crews from other districts on Monday in response to the forecast. That helped provide both manpower and equipment to combat Rocky.

This series of storms was the first serious test of MoDOT since it announced in 2011 it was closing district offices, consolidating areas and drastically reducing its vehicle fleet and staff.

“We’ve had a few smaller snowfalls where we were able to work out some of the details and our crews and staff were really well prepared,” Crawford said.

Even as the snow kept falling Wednesday, MoDOT crews focused on Highway 63 and Baltimore Street as well as the minor routes and highways.

Despite some minor flurries Friday morning, the most that remains from the pair of storms in Kirksville are the two dump locations the city has been using for its tons of snow off of Osteopathy Street.

Thursday afternoon, truck load after truck load, each weighing about 3,000 pounds, was deposited and piled on. Buckwalter estimated that with more than 450 loads of snow hauled for just Rocky, Public Works had cleared about 150,000 pounds of snow, or about 13,500 cubic feet.

And with the heavy lifting over, city crews will now turn their attentions to clearing significant snow drifts, especially piles that may impede sight distances at intersections.

“We’re still working on essentially a complaint basis,” Buckwalter said Thursday afternoon. “We’re doing a lot of work similar to 2011 about trying to move piles of snow near intersections that are blocking sight distances. Some of those we pile, some of those we’re not sure who piled up but we’re going to try and eliminate those sight distance problems. We’re hoping it gets nice and warm and those problems kind of melt away.”

But next week’s forecast may not cooperate with an about 40 percent chance of rain or snow on Monday and Tuesday and temperatures barely reaching the 40s.